


out with lanterns looking for [ourselves]

by Monstrous_Femme



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, alternate personalities, magicians femslash week 2019, never technically disproved by canon, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 23:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17877104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monstrous_Femme/pseuds/Monstrous_Femme
Summary: On the road searching for the others, Janet and Sam have a moment together.





	out with lanterns looking for [ourselves]

**Author's Note:**

> Previously Lady_Slytherin, changed my username along with my tumblr url.
> 
> Title is paraphrased from an Emily Dickinson line.

After the six or seventh hotel, they all started to blur together, so Sam wasn’t sure which number they were on anymore, just that the sheets were probably a higher thread count than she’d slept on in her life. Janet had gone off somewhere, mumbling something about a cocktail.

They’d been on the road for over a week, and they were only just starting to find clues that might lead to one of the others in the comic.

Sam wrapped her blankets more tightly around herself, relishing the softness against her bare arms, when her phone played the pre-set text tone she’d been unable to change. She’d ditched her real phone three towns back, tired of calls from her sergeant asking where the hell she was and did she really expect to still have a job when she got back if she missed much more work. 

The text was from an unfamiliar number, but only because she’d been too lazy to program Janet into her phone. 

_Rooftop garden. Five minutes._

Sam rolled her eyes, because _of course_ Janet had brought them to a place with a rooftop fucking garden, but a smile grew on her face in spite of herself.

_Just give me a minute to prepare my private jet._

_Ha ha ha. Just get up here, bitch._

Laughing, Sam forced the sheets away from her body and rose. Once outside the hotel room, there were clear signs pointing to the rooftop garden, and she was up there within minutes. Janet was lying across a lounge chair, sunglasses on top of her head and flipping aimlessly through a magazine.

“You rang?” Sam asked, settling herself into the chair next to Janet.

“Just wanted to talk over the plan. We’ve been on the road for over a week now. Are you sure there’s not anything else in the comic that could help us?”

“I’m doing the best I can, but it’s pretty vague on location.”

Janet nodded and lit a cigarette. “Normally if something was taking this long I’d find someone to yell about, but this time I genuinely don’t think it’s your fault.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”

“So, at what point do we bail if we can’t find the others?” Janet asked, blowing a perfect smoke ring. “I mean, our lives are pretty good right now, aren’t they? I’m a very successful editor at a fashion magazine, and while my personal feelings about cops are not particularly warm and fuzzy it _is_ a respected and well-paid job. How do we know—you know—would be that much better?”

Sam glanced around, but Janet’s words didn’t seem to have angered the spell. “We don’t,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “But it’s real. And— we wouldn’t have wanted this.”

“How can you be so sure? For all we know, we did this on purpose because we wanted to forget.”

Janet’s cigarette went up in flames. She dropped it with a shriek

“Shit.” Sam swiveled and stomped at the flames until they went out, leaving a trail of smoke and a streak of soot. “Management’s not going to be pleased about that.”

“See?” Janet asked. She looked out across the sunset, and the eye that wasn’t covered by a patch looked empty. “Our lives aren’t so bad. Maybe we should leave well enough alone.”

“I don’t want to.” Sam crossed her arms. “Haven’t you ever felt—I don’t know, alone and confused? Maybe if we were living—you know what I mean—maybe it wouldn’t feel that way.”

“That’s just what it’s like to be a human, hon.”

“Or maybe we just think that because we don’t know anything else.?”

“I’m scared, okay?” Janet snapped. “I like my life. I like who I am. What if we—God, and I can’t even talk about it without angry bolts of lighting falling from the sky! I just don’t want to wake up one day and be boring and—look, I just want to be me!”

Sam didn’t have anything to say to that. She closed her eyes against the feelings that were welling up. She’d always hated crying in front of people, ever since that asshole Tristan had laughed at her in second grade when she’d broken down after having her shoes stolen. 

Except that had never happened.

Nothing had, or at least, nothing Sam could remember.

“Listen,” she said, thinking quickly. “You’ll still remember who you are now, right? No matter what. So if you don’t like—you can choose who to be. You can act however you want.”

Janet rolled her eyes. “If it’s so easy, why don’t you just change whatever’s bothering you about yourself and get back to your life?”

“Because what’s bothering me is that none of it is real.”

“Fine.” Janet put a hand on Sam’s arm. “But you’re clearly scared of something too, so what’s up?”

The words felt stuck in Sam’s throat. She stared out at the horizon, the last rays of red as the sun set. “I’m scared you’re right and it still feels like this, no matter who you are.”

“What would you do if you weren’t scared?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Live my life or something. What about you, what would you do if you weren’t scared?”

Janet looked at her, a coy smile beginning to grace her face. “Well, since you ask,” she said, leaning in, and all at once her lips were on Sam’s. Her fingers slid across Sam’s wrists, eliciting a small gasp. 

Sam wound her hands gently through Janet’s hair. She’d never kissed another woman, but something about it felt so natural. Janet sucked on her lower lip, and she took the opportunity to slip her tongue inside Janet’s mouth. 

This was better than anything she’d ever felt before, especially better than her last boyfriend—

Who wasn’t real.

And neither was she.

Sam pulled away all at once.

“Sorry, too much?” Janet asked.

“Little bit.” Sam’s breathing was heavy, as though she’d run all the way up and down the stairs. “It’s just—it’s weird, not knowing who either of us really—you know.”

Janet shrugged. “We know who we are now, right?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be. So what if our memories are—less than reliable, let’s say. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy what’s happening now.”

Sam ran her fingers through her hair. “Please, can we just—let’s not talk about this until we’ve figured everything else out. It’s too much.”

Janet raised an eyebrow. “If that’s what you want,” she said. “But think of how much fun we’d have, hooking up on a cross-country mystery-solving extravaganza. It’s right out of—well, right out of a bad comic, really.”

“It is what I want,” Sam said, closing her eyes. 

She’d shelve it in the private place in her mind where she left things that were too much to think about. Soon, they’d find the others and figure out who they really were. This couldn’t happen again, not until Sam knew who Janet really was.

Not until Sam knew who _she_ really was.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk me me about the magicians on tumblr! I was @bisexual-meme-thief but now I'm @monstrous-femme.


End file.
